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Iraqi officials 'stole half-billion USD'
23.10.2006
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WASHINGTON,
October 23,-- More than half a billion dollars
earmarked to fight the insurgency in Iraq has been
stolen by people running the country's Ministry of
Defense before the 2005 elections, CBS News
reported.
Citing Iraqi investigators, the television network
said Sunday the United States and Britain are doing
little to help recover the money or catch suspects,
most of whom have fled the country.
An investigation conducted by the "60 Minutes"
program has also turned up audio recordings of a
suspect who seems to be discussing the transfer of
45 million dollars to the account of a top political
adviser to the interim defense minister of Iraq, the
report said.
"We have not been given any serious, official
support from either the United States or the UK or
any of the surrounding Arab countries," Ali Allawi,
Iraq's former finance minister, told the program.
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Former Iraq finance minister Ali Allawi in 2004
Photo:AFP |
"The only explanation I can come up with is that too
many people in positions of power and authority in
the new Iraq have been, in one way or another, found
with their hands inside the cookie jar," continued
Allawi, who left his post when a new Iraqi
government was formed earlier this year.
"And if they are brought to trial, it will cast a
very disparaging light on those people who had
supported them and brought them to this position of
power and authority," he said.
One of the major suspects in the case is Ziad Cattan,
who was in charge of military procurement at a time
when the ministry of defense went on a
1.2-billion-dollar buying spree, CBS News said.
Allawi estimates that between 750 million and 800
million dollars of that money was stolen.
Meanwhile, Judge Radhi al-Radhi, head of Iraq's
Commission on Public Integrity, which investigates
official corruption, said a lot of the money that
was not stolen was spent on outdated, useless
equipment.
Cattan, whom "60 Minutes" found in Paris and who was
recently convicted in absentia in Iraq for
squandering public funds, denied any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, audio recordings obtained by CBS News
reveal Cattan talking to an associate in Amman,
Jordan, in 2004 about Iraqi funds and payoffs to
Iraqi officials.
One possible payoff the recordings allude to is the
transfer of 45 million dollars to the account of a
top political adviser to the defense minister, a man
who is also identified on the recordings as a
representative of the president and the prime
minister of the interim government, the report said.
AFP
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